Rather, this is my twist on what appears to be bad press that Hunter is getting. Not immediately when Hunter got released, but when it reached a broad audience, a lot of the opinion regarding game mechanics on alt.games.whitewolf was not very happy. Many people were upset at the apparent frivolity White Wolf took in trying to splat or categorize the Hunters into Creeds with Virtues and what have you. This was done in all the other games, but there appears to be a feeling that splatting was needed for Hunter. This, my friends, may sound like a lot of role player dissent in regards to where White Wolf is going. But it actually appears to be a good omen.
Lets look at the bare facts. We would all love to believe that White Wolf is full of people concerned with the more esoteric things in life, but this isn’t true. White Wolf is a business. They need to make money, and we want them to so they can continue to create and modify the games we love so much. In just a business sense, it is wise to always try to aim at the lowest common denominator. In this case that denominator is the beginning role player and Storyteller. So we have splats available to them to help them join those of us that are more comfortable with the WoD.
So what does that mean to the aforementioned "more comfortable" you ask? Not really much, actually. To us, it’s business as usual. I believe that a lot of the people rebelling against the splat in Hunter have matured in the roleplaying and just don’t know it. One of the main points that the creators of the World of Darkness have tried to instill in us is that their books and their rules are only guides for us to do with as we please. This said, it becomes obvious, at least to me, that the Creeds and Virtues of Hunter are there only to help us quantify the unquantifiable. Technically, as long as the game isn’t degenerated to something the players and Storyteller dislike then anything could go.
At first these thoughts of mine spawned an idea that I’ve since decided against. I thought it would be worth while for White Wolf to release an advanced player version of the games. To most of the experienced players that are looking for a good story, it is really irrelevant which Tradition a mage belongs to because what makes the story interesting is the interactions of different characters as people, not as a member of a Tradition. I’m sure it would be possible to play the games without the use of the categories for our characters. But to do this doesn’t require another book, it just requires the freedom that White Wolf has "granted" us with their games.